Chapter 84: Star Vortex Battle: The Blooming of Thorns and the Doctor's Screen-Watching

Purple-black rotting tentacles tore through the churning stardust light bands, surging forward with an aura of annihilation! Their maw-like tips split open, spewing viscous, foul-smelling purple-black energy beams; wherever they passed, the pure stardust was instantly tainted and dimmed!

Lin Mo was at the critical moment of his fierce struggle against the mark within his body—facing this lethal attack, there was no way to dodge!

"Thorn—Bulwark!"

At the brink of life and death, he erupted with the full force of his will! No longer suppressing the mark on his right arm, he instead took that bound, violent rotting power and, mixing it with the blue light of the Order Anchor, the guardian conviction of the Thorn Will, and the faint order-force drawn from the stardust vortex below, forcibly guided and fused it into an unprecedented torrent of energy brimming with contradiction and destruction—then savagely channeled it into the thruster pack on his back!

Boom—!!!

The thruster pack's nozzle instantly overloaded, erupting in a blinding, violent flare of mixed dark-gold, orange-red, ghostly blue, and a thread of dark purple! The tremendous recoil blasted Lin Mo backward like a cannonball, narrowly evading the concentrated fire of several energy beams! The residual beams grazed his Thorn Steel armor, emitting a shrill, corrosive sizzle and leaving deep scorch marks!

"Wrench! Jam it!" Lin Mo roared while tumbling, simultaneously forcing himself steady and drawing the "Vein Arbiter" from his back! The four-colored light on the sword-guard emblem flickered madly as chaotic, violent power gathered on the blade!

Wrench had long been scared out of his wits, but his survival instinct overwhelmed everything. He frantically slapped the largest red button on the side of the probe box: "Take my 'Chaos Noise'!"

Wooo-ow—!!!

A sonic interference beam—far more distorted and chaotic than the one inside the Inverted Ark, laced with Thorn Steel energy and stardust particle static—struck like an invisible giant hammer, slamming viciously into the rotting tentacles pursuing Lin Mo!

Hmm!

The purple-black energy field on the tentacle's surface fluctuated violently, flickering once like a bad signal! The pursuit motion showed an extremely brief lag!

That instant of lag!

"Break—for me!"

A fierce light exploded from Lin Mo's eyes! He poured every ounce of that chaotic, violent power within him into the war-blade; no longer chasing exquisite swordplay, he swung in the most primal, most violent stance—a condensed energy sword-qi woven from dark gold and dark purple, imbued with the will to destroy!

Sizzle—!!!

The sword-qi cut like a red-hot dinner knife through butter, slashing viciously into the lagging energy nodes of those tentacles! Purple-black pus mixed with shattered withered crystals sprayed out wildly! The tough rotting tentacles were forcibly severed by a large section! Chaotic energy flames burned at the severed ends!

"Roar—!!!"

A soundless howl of agony and rage, mingled with the Rot Claw, came from the depths of the void! The other tendrils coiled around the Ark wreckage whipped about madly, and more tentacles probed out like venomous pythons! At the same time, the massive stardust vortex seemed disturbed as well—its rotation became disordered, and the pure order-force fluctuations intensified!

"Boss! The vortex core! The purest stardust spot! The Rot Claw's tendrils are polluting it! We have to break them off!" Wrench shrieked; the probe had captured the drastic shift in energy attributes at the vortex core.

Lin Mo sensed it too. Within the milky-white radiance of the stardust vortex core, threads of murky purple-black were being forcibly injected, like ink drops falling into clear water. Once the core was thoroughly polluted, not only would the pure stardust vanish, the Rot Claw's power would receive a terrifying amplification!

Cannot let it succeed!

Lin Mo piloted the thruster pack like a moth flying into flame, braving countless tentacles' interception and the Rot Claw's terrifying psychic pressure, and charged ferociously toward the massive stardust vortex! The power of the Thorn Will communicated with the violent spatial turbulence below, forming invisible thrusts that accelerated him!

"Thorn—Roots! Domain Expansion!"

Hmm!

This time, the Thorn Roots did not burst from the ground—they extended and materialized directly from the war-blade in Lin Mo's hand! Countless energy roots, coated in stardust crystals and glittering with dark-gold and emerald micro-light, exploded outward from around him like a wildly dancing thorn thicket! Ignoring the barrier of space, part of them lashed and coiled toward the pursuing rotting tentacles, while the rest, like greedy roots, plunged deep into the edge of the stardust vortex, madly drawing pure order-force to replenish their own consumption!

With the supplement of stardust power, the might of the Thorn Roots domain surged! Though still being constantly corroded and torn by the rotting tentacles, its regeneration speed far surpassed anything before! Lin Mo, like one commanding a mobile sea of thorn-stars, charged left and broke right through the tentacles' siege, inching closer to the vortex core!

"Wrench! Cover me! Attack those rooted tendrils!" Lin Mo roared over comms.

Wrench immediately piloted the probe box, focusing the remaining energy into several small energy emitters and firing beams of orange-red energy laced with Thorn Steel particles, precisely striking the joints where the Rot Claw's tendrils coiled around the Ark wreckage and plunged into the vortex! Though the power was insufficient to destroy the tendrils, the jamming effect was significant, slowing the pollution.

At last, Lin Mo broke through layer upon layer of interception and plunged into the core region of the stardust vortex! Before his eyes lay the milky-white order radiance so dense it could not be diluted, and those several main roots of the Rot Claw—like giant blood vessels—madly drawing stardust and injecting purple-black pollution!

The Rot Claw clearly sensed the lethal threat! The psychic pressure in the core region instantly spiked to the extreme! Countless tiny purple-black flying needles, formed of pure rotting energy, shot out from the vortex's milky-white radiance like a rainstorm, covering every evasive angle Lin Mo had! At the same time, those main roots swelled violently, split open into larger maws, and spewed condensed death-rays of rot capable of piercing starship armor!

No way to dodge! A flash of madness crossed Lin Mo's eyes! He pushed the thruster pack to maximum power, charged head-on into the death-rays and flying needles, and savagely thrust the "Vein Arbiter" toward the junction of those main roots! The four-colored light on the sword-guard emblem—especially the earthen-yellow representing the Thorn Will and the newly merged white of stardust—burned to the extreme!

"In the name of the Thorn! Guard! Purify!"

At the instant the sword-tip was about to touch the Rot Claw's main roots—

In a cold observation station hidden by folded space, far from the battlefield. The Doctor stood expressionless before a massive ring-shaped screen. The screen clearly displayed the image of Lin Mo's ferocious charge within the stardust vortex, about to collide with the Rot Claw's main roots. Countless data streams cascaded down the small screens beside it like waterfalls.

【Target individual (Lin Mo) energy fusion rate: abnormal increase (Thorn Will + Order Anchor + Corruption Mark fragments + Stardust Power)】

【Energy conflict index: 97.8%… approaching collapse critical point】

【Rot Claw (Annihilation Unit) pollution output power: peak (stardust conversion rate: 32.7%)】

【Ark Seven wreckage (core section) structural integrity: 41.3%… continuously declining…】

【Seed of Annihilation activation status: standby (energy fill: 99.1%)】

The Doctor's cold fingertip hovered above a ghostly-blue button labeled 【Force-detonate "Seed of Annihilation"】. The lenses reflected Lin Mo's resolute charging figure, and the chaotically flickering, nearly out-of-control four-colored light on the sword-guard emblem behind him.

"Struggle… fuse… let me see… the final product of the 'Key' and the 'Vessel' colliding…" he murmured to himself, his fingertip a mere micron from the button.